The Research Rabbit Hole

by Kate Woodworth

An essay by the author of Great Little Island, a contemporary adult novel about a woman who returns to a tiny Maine island with her young son, and gets involved in the ecosystem of the island…from generations of fishing families to the lobsters and the butterflies.

I’m old enough to remember when researching a topic meant a trip to the library. My first research paper was assigned in elementary school and involved learning about the life of a pirate. I was assigned Bluebeard (although I’d desperately wanted Blackbeard), and the project included learning the Dewey Decimal System, how to use a card catalogue, and the Wonderland adventure of tracking down a book in the stacks. Bluebeard, as it turned out, was in the habit of murdering the women in his life and was every bit as terrifying as Blackbeard, thus teaching me an important aspect of research: it expands your knowledge in unforeseen ways. A quick review of Bluebeard for this essay turned up another interesting fact: Bluebeard was never a pirate. Depending on which source you consult, he was either a fictional fairy tale character or a man of considerable wealth who ran around beheading children. Perhaps there’s a life lesson in there about wealth, but what I recognized was research lessons #2 – that our understanding changes over time and #3 - experts disagree.

High school brought with it a larger library, longer research papers, and lessons in proper citation, and college was a similar escalation in scale that included lessons about competition for and sharing of resources as well as the discovery that a library carrel, tucked away in some distant corner of some upper floor, could become not just a sanctuary but a transport vehicle to magical world. Lesson 5. Or 6. Or 7.

Then came adulthood, during which I juggled a career in medical writing with writing fiction and raising my children (all have their heads attached in the proper location). The local library remained a cornerstone of life for fiction research, thereby solidifying my understanding of another lesson: the value of the guide or mentor in the research journey. One afternoon, I approached the librarian in my local library and asked for information on witchcraft, specifically spells that affected fertility. The library was in Salt Lake City, where fecundity is revered in certain corners of the populous. Without so much as an eyebrow twitch, the librarian led me to the other side of the room. “History of witchcraft,” she said, pointing. “Spells and incantations to the right.”

In my career, however, I needed specialized, in-depth information and, happily, the Internet became a ubiquitous fact of life around then — a fortunate development for a dyed-in-the-wool English major writing about how the sequencing of the human genome had transformed cancer research. I was also lucky enough to have access to researchers and physicians who were willing to work with me toward a common goal. In one memorable moment, a Russian biostatistician complained that his work was never given any play in the media because no one understood it. One of his colleagues was in the room, and the two of them had switched seamlessly between Russian and English while I’d explained house style for punctuation. Literally and figuratively, I didn’t speak the man’s language, but I told him I’d get his work into the newspaper if he was willing to answer all my questions. We struck a deal. It worked. Another lesson: Accept and acknowledge your own ignorance.

Then came the panicked request to write a 3,000-word piece on epigenetics with one of those deadlines that makes you realize your coffee pot needs to be hooked to an IV pole.

“No problem,” I said.

The moment I hung up, I looked up the definition of epigenetics, which I’d never heard of. The definition was singularly unhelpful: the study of everything other than genetics in cell function that impacts heritable traits. What’s everything? Turns out it was mostly unknown. For the record, I don’t view fudging the truth as a research lesson. I knew I could write the article. I just didn’t know, in the moment I agreed to the assignment, how I was going to pull it off. Another lesson: be bold.

Armed with the lessons gleaned across a lifetime, I found myself flopping about in the mess called the first draft of a novel. I knew I wanted to write a story that inspired people to pay attention to the reality of climate change. Focusing on my fears for the future of the human race was going to throw me into a major depression, so I decided to write about the possible extinction of a non-human species. Cute, furry mammals seemed like a choice that would appeal to readers, as did some of the more noble birds, such as snowy owls or bald eagles. But is anyone sleepless over the fate of the Caspian tiger? Was there a funeral for the last of the Caribbean monk seals? Lonesome George, the last purebred Pinta Island tortoise, died in 2015. The Pinta Island tortoise (not George), inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution. These facts are horrifying, but I couldn’t imagine crafting a novel around them. I needed a critter with some iconic status in society; one that was important but not too cute; one that could reasonably disappear without most of the population noticing, and yet one whose extinction would have significant repercussions.

The lobster.

The idea hit me when I was interviewing owners of a seafood market about changes to the environment they had noticed in their lifetime. (“None” was the answer in 2015). On the way out of the store, I stopped by the lobster tank. The market owner joined me and pointed out that lobster can be right or left “handed”. Every lobster has a crusher claw – the larger one – and a pincher claw. The pincher moves more quickly and is more precise. The crusher crushes. Sometimes the crusher is the right claw. Sometimes it’s the left. Boom: I tumbled willingly down the rabbit hole to learn about lobster mating habits; about a dual-color, dual sex lobster captured in December 2023 off the coast of Maine; about the migratory habits of lobster and the design of lobster traps, including appropriate terminology (there are kitchens! And parlors!). I visited a lobster hatchery to view larval and post-larval lobster, blue lobsters, lobsters that are one color on the right side of their body and a different color on the left, and I spent a day on a boat watching trap hauling and rebaiting and peppering a very patient lobsterman with questions. The more I learned, the more there was to learn: the politics of lobster fishing, the tension between conservationists concerned for the future of the right whale and lobstermen, the impact of alternative energy such as wind turbines on marine life, and international tensions stemming from the fact that marine animals don’t much care about boundaries. That one hole connected me to a veritable warren that contained sea level rise, changes in salinity, increasing water temperatures, changes in tide, fluid dynamics. The history of Maine fisheries. Regional and social attitudes about lobster (“snob food” versus a summer tradition as critical as baseball). How all of these factors were going to impact lobster, the fishing industry, and all of us whether we eat lobster or not.

All that research (and more) shows up as somewhere around a page of actual text in my novel, Little Great Island. Was I lost in the research rabbit hole? Certainly, like Alice, I had moments when I felt as though a dozen packs of animated cards had flung themselves at my head. But now that I’m back on the ground, I’m certain that the most important lesson of research is that there is no such thing as time wasted.

Kate Woodworth is the author of Racing Into the Dark (EP Dutton) and the forthcoming Little Great Island (Sibylline Press, May 2025). Her short stories have been published in Quarterly West, Cimarron Review, Shenandoah, and others. She lives outside Boston.

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Solutions Spotlight

In Wildlands, Brogen Murphy imagines a rewilded England:

Welcome To the Wildlands

Imagine a Britain without the howl of the wolf, or the growl of a bear. Way back in 2025, this was the sorry state of our overcrowded island. Intensive farming, climate change, pollution, urban expansion . . . animals simply had no place left to go. While large predators had already been lost, centuries before, now even common garden species were on the brink of extinction – the hedgehog, the badger, the humble bumble bee!

A generation of children faced a future with silent skies, empty forests and dead rivers. But just when we looked to be on the brink of disaster, a visionary plan was unveiled. What if we could bring back the lost animals and create a place where nature could not only survive, but thrive?

An idea this bold couldn’t be kept to a quiet corner of the countryside, it had to bigger than we'd ever dared dream before. And so, an enormous area of farmland, forestry and national parks – covering much of northern England and southern Scotland – was chosen.

First, the bison, beaver, boar, elk and eagles were released. Then, after all humans had safely left, followed the fiercest predators – wolves, bear and lynx. Free once again to choose its own destiny, the landscape slowly transformed into a vast wilderness of forests, meadow, scrubland, rivers, lakes, beaches and wild seas.

To allow people to enjoy this unique environment, a ten-mile-wide ‘buffer zone’ was established around the edge of the project. So why not come hike with pine marten through pristine forest, canoe with otters down crystal-clear rivers, and fall asleep under a thousand stars to the whoop of a long-eared owl? But be warned – you must not cross the boundary-line into the heart of the Wildlands.

Our intelligent alarm system has ensured than no-one has set foot in the core of the project for twenty years. Untamed, unmonitored and undisturbed, this is a place for nature to keep its secrets. What happens there, we can only guess.

However, you may catch a glimpse if you ride the train from London to Glasgow – for this high-speed rail line crosses right through the middle of the project.

– Extract from ‘Your Guide to the Wildlands’ 2050 edition